


Reintigration

by RavenclawProngs



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenclawProngs/pseuds/RavenclawProngs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was beneath his intelligence to be jealous of someone who was, essentially, himself—but that didn’t stop Ambrose from thinking that maybe he should have just stayed as he was, half-brained and happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reintigration

Ambrose sat back in his chair and sighed, putting his hands behind his head. It was late, and only one of the moons had risen. Watery blue light filtered into his lab and mingled with the warm yellow glow of the gaslights. Ambrose found himself staring at them, part of him fascinated by the unflickering flame while another part of him was recalling just how he’d tweaked their design to be more efficient. He really should have been in bed but lately he hadn’t been sleeping very well. No longer Glitch but not quite the old Ambrose either, his dreams were a confused mix of memories from both lives, oftentimes mixing in ways that his waking self knew were completely preposterous. Unfortunately, dreams didn’t follow the same logic and he’d find himself waking up in a cold sweat because he’d dreamt that Azkadellia was still evil and was coming back for his brain, this time to take all of it; or that Deegee was gone again, just when she’d been found once more, and he had to watch her be buried again.

 

Ambrose stretched his arms over his head, arching his back to try and get the kinks out. The queen had once “suggested” he take dancing lessons so that he’d at least get some exercise and hopefully avoid becoming stooped with age before his time. Strangely, that was something Glitch had never forgotten and had even been better at than Ambrose himself. Idly, Ambrose wondered if that was something he’d be able to keep. Glitch had been far more carefree than Ambrose could remember ever being. Only having half a brain meant that Glitch just didn’t have the headspace to worry about looking foolish—he was going to anyway, so there were more important things to be concerned with.

 

Glitch had none of Ambrose’s dignified reserve, though he’d retained some of his manners. Ambrose smirked slightly, positive that Mrs. Grout, his old etiquette teacher, would be overjoyed to know that some of her lessons were so deeply ingrained in him that, even when he had half a brain and wouldn’t have remembered her name had he met her again, he still acted upon them.

 

There were too many things he was responsible for again for Ambrose to let himself be as laid-back as Glitch had been but there were still some things that Glitch had simply done—better. Social interaction was one of them. Without the impediment of always having ideas to write down—brilliant ideas, passionately idealistic ideas—and with the burden of missing memories and misfiring synapses, Glitch had needed to adapt, adopt a more winsome and cheerful attitude, not only for his own sake but also so that other people were willing to put up with being in his presence for any length of time.

 

Now Ambrose was reunited with his brain and could go on with his life just as before, if he wanted, neck-deep in a new experiment when he wasn’t advising the queen on some matter of importance. He could go back, if he wanted.

 

Ambrose didn’t want to. The part of him that remembered being Glitch, the part that had helped Deegee save the O.Z., the part that knew what it was like to hang from the bottom of a Munchkin’s elevated prison and swing to safety, that had run from the Papay, jumped off a cliff—that part of him _knew_ that there were other things, important things, in life; things that just didn’t happen when you stayed locked up in a lab all the time. Glitch knew all these things and found them easy because he couldn’t concentrate long enough to get so deeply enmeshed in an experiment he forgot to eat. Glitch never had to remind himself to introduce himself to others before speaking to them—his name (even if it wasn’t his real one) was one of the few things Glitch never forgot and he introduced himself often because he couldn’t remember if he’d done it already.

 

It was beneath his intelligence to be jealous of someone who was, essentially, himself—but that didn’t stop Ambrose from thinking that maybe he should have just stayed as he was, half-brained and happy. Except… while Glitch may have been superficially happy, the fact he was missing an important part of himself had continued to plague him, the soft jingle of his zipper a constant reminder of what he’d lost. So maybe there was a middle ground, something between complete scientific focus and the inability to focus, more than the cool satisfaction of an experiment gone right and less than the heady (fleeting) joy of remembering something.

 

Ambrose rose from his chair and walked into his bedroom. He could work on this tomorrow—he glanced at the clock—ah, later today; right now it was time for rest.


End file.
